various contributors

“ Once upon a time, when we were first told about Karl, those of us who didn't say that it was an extraordinary coincidence observed that the world is a small place after all; but now, when the narrator reaches that part of the story where he tells us that we "can imagine his surprise when"—I usually interrupt him to say that he must forgive me, but really I cannot.
Karl was a German waiter at all the restaurants where my friends and my friends' friends were in the habit of dining. ”

“ I made it my business to let my friends know—those friends of mine who had not already heard from someone who had met him—that he was securely interned in Holland, and we should know no more of him until the war was over, and after that I had for some time the pleasure of forgetting his existence. ”

“ But about Karl. His mind had undoubtedly become unhinged and, after escaping from Holland, he found his way to the house where she was employed, learnt that she had been arrested (you see, the red stitches on her handkerchief, which everyone had supposed were laundry marks, turned out to be plans of Hampton Court Maze and the most direct route to Swan and Selfinsons) , and, seizing the rifle, he rushed from the house (it was the night the Russians passed through Aberdeen and Upper Norwood) and———"
Stephen apologised to me.
"Karl shall be no more," he said. "Karl the ubiquitous is dead." ”